


Fire and Lions

by amdaltrail



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Custom Trevelyan, F/M, Female Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Half-Elf Inquisitor, Inquisitor Backstory, Learning to trust, Mages and Templars, Male-Female Friendship, Trevelyan (Dragon Age) has Sibling(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 15:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14428608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amdaltrail/pseuds/amdaltrail
Summary: Illara Trevelyan has known the Circle and the harsh sword of the Templars for many years. Used as a chained knight-enchanter, Illara finds herself in a situation she never imagined. The Herald of Andraste, a figurehead of the newly formed Inquisition. Companions attach themselves to her. Whether for their own gain or not, she does not know. The most pressing matter is her wild magic, and If there's a way to lock away her magic without Tranquility or a way to control it, she will find it. The thought of her power being unleashed upon the world terrifies her more than the hole in the sky.But what if she finds more? There are many eyes upon her, and not all of them have straight forward or good intentions





	Fire and Lions

 

The world always quieted when the bow reached its peak. She felt the string ache with anticipation as she waited for her prey to stop. No hesitation, she remembered. No remorse. She felt the eyes behind her watching her every move. One wrong move and she would live in isolation for months. That, however, did not matter. What truly mattered was in front of her, discussing something with other mages. If her aim remained true, she could end the battle before it began. Her breathing slowed. Calmly, her fingers loosened. Her eyes followed the arrow into the side of her target as his arm raised. It dug its way into his chest and pierced his heart before he knew. As he fell, she charged.

 

She flew across the campsite, spear in hand. Those who did not fall to blade faced a menace, wreathed in flame. The mages scattered. The sound of blades in flesh cut off the screams. Every tent ablaze and every man and woman in fear, she held them in terrified awe as she ripped through them. Her eyes glazed over, her mind closed, and her body enslaved. Her spear pierced the damned. Her fire engulfed the weak. She felt nothing.

 

“Trevelyan! End it!”

 

The harsh voice called her to clarity. End it. She placed herself in the center of the camp. The men who knew ran for cover. Those who did not rushed her. As she focused on the magic, time again slowed. The crooked faces of the mages who charged her, the backs of the templars who chained her, and the fire within her all dominated her sight. 

 

Breath in. 

 

The magic boiled beneath her skin. Raw power ready to burst at any moment. 

 

Breath out.

 

Her body exploded in flame. The men around her screamed in agony as it ate them. The mages who ran came face to face with Templar swords and arrows. _ A successful hunt with a brutish end _ , she thought. The camp was in cinders. Anything not metal lay burning or as ashes. Her spear was gone as were her clothes. Only the metal plate on her chest and legs remained. 

A Templar approached her. As he reached for her, a shout raged from his throat. His hand began burning as if acid had been poured on it. Another Templar dragged him away.

 

“This is why you need a handler,” a gruff voice said as an immense pressure shoved her to her knees. “Too much chaos. Not enough control.”

 

A leather collar slipped its way around her neck. The hand securing did not burn this time. It belonged to a Templar she had known for a time, Captain Terin Cinath. Her current master. She felt the collar, tracing the dwarven runes etched into it. The collar suppressed her abilities making her more manageable but not entirely controllable. As previous masters learned, it only controlled the conscious use of magic. Terin knew better than the others and kept her under a dampening field at all times when not in combat.

 

“Come on girl,” he said, pulling her up by the plate. “Let's get you into some clothes.”

 

As they walked through the mage’s camp to her own, the bodies gazed up at her with blank eyes and slacked jaws.  _ This is why we must be chained _ , she thought. What other horrors remained locked behind the collar? Something more destructive than the flame she already wrought? She had witnessed the abominations that became of her once fellow comrades. Friends corrupted by the seductive power promised by demons and spirits. She saw them too in her dreams. They craved entry into her skin as they did with all other mages. She shivered as the thought of Fear crossed her mind. What if they got to her? What if they found her? What would happen to those around her? She shook her head. It would never happen. Not when she had the Templars to control her or kill her if needed. 

 

They reached the camp a short distance away. The mages did not hide themselves well, an oversight from years spent cloistered away. Templar patrols acknowledged the captain and his charge as they passed in silence. No unnecessary words that might give away their position. The Templar camp had one smokeless fire. She was the only mage among a platoon of soldiers.  _ Still too few _ , her mind wondered. Cinath led her to the only tent that a person could stand in. She stood outside as he walked in. Sounds of rummaging cluttered the air as he dug through something. 

 

“Illara!”

 

Illara Trevelyan stood still, back straight as a young Templar woman approached her. The woman’s black hair tied in a stiff ponytail escaped the clutches of the black ribbon tied around it.

 

“Corporal Lysette,” Illara stiffly said. 

 

“No need to be formal. I’m looking for the captain. Is he inside?”

 

Illara nodded. Just as Lysette reached for the flap, Cinath stepped out with a bundle of clothes.

 

“Ah, Lysette. Can you help her get changed?”

 

“Yes, ser,” she replied, motioning Illara to come inside.

 

The tent had little inside. A simple cot and map table occupied the space. Two packs sat against a post, one obviously opened and rummaged through. Lysette closed and secured the flap so no one could just walk in. She set the clothes on the cot and called Illara over.

 

“Trevelyan, I will never understand how do this,” she said as she gently unbuckled the dense leather straps charred by fire. “Every time! How many clothes do you go through?”

 

The chest plate limped to Illara’s side. She caught it before it hit her hip. The metal still felt warm. She felt exposed without the plate. All of the clothes that were not thick leather on her had burned. Only her boots and armor remained after the blast. Lysette unbuckled the last strap. Illara quickly wrapped the breast band around her chest. The other woman gave no notice. The greaves still rested atop her shins and tassets upon her thighs.

 

“Can you handle those,” Lysette asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

Illara gingerly loosened the straps of the tassets. The leather had bitten into her skin leaving a harsh rash. Lysette hissed at the sight and went to the packs in search of something. Illara stripped off the greaves seeing similar rashes underneath. Lysette brought her a small tin with a thick paste inside. The smell was horribly off putting. Illara got a small glob of it and rubbed it onto the rashes. She winced as it touched the wounds. 

 

“I know it stinks, but elfroot is the only way to make sure you don’t get an infection,” Lysette said as she sat on the cot. “I envy you to a degree, you know.”

 

Illara stared at her. Why would anyone be envious of her?

 

“You are one of the select few of the Circle able to leave for missions, but even now you are collared. You can control any element, though,” she trailed off as she contemplated her hand.

 

Illara pulled on trousers as she replied, “It’s not what they want you to think.” 

 

“I know. It’s just -- you can do almost anything, but we restrict it for our own safety. I get it but…”

 

“There’s nothing good about being able to burn someone you love with acid that you didn’t mean to summon. There’s nothing amazing about wild magic.”

 

Illara’s mind flashed to the image of the burning men earlier. She trembled trying to keep back the despair that welled in her heart. Lysette got up and hugged her.

 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

 

Illara choked back tears and nodded.

 

As she pulled on her tunic, Lysette walked to the tent flap and looked back. 

 

“I’ll get you something to eat.” 

 

She watched as the Templar left the tent. Her legs still ached from the rashes. She reached into the open pack, her pack, and found a strip of leather. She tied her hair back feeling the tips of her ears. Her fingertips lingered at the side of her neck. Nothing felt right after the Templars conscripted her. They demanded the Ostwick Circle release her to hunt down rebel mages. She remembered the horror as her once fellow comrades looked at her with scorn and hatred when she first stepped foot on the battlefield. The chest plate at her feet had been her only remaining memory of her life before the Circle. Her family had not contacted her since she awakened. Her mother must have restricted her father or brothers from writing, but it had been so long, her mind did not care anymore. A gift from her father for her thirteenth birthday, much to her mother’s chagrin, the chest plate bore the crest of her family, the fiery unbridled horse. She felt the raised crest remembering when her father taught her to wield a sword. 

 

“Trevelyan! Out here on the double!”

 

The harsh shout shocked her out of her thoughts. She stepped out of her tent and was greeted by the sight of heavily decorated Templars. At least one Knight-Commander and two Knights sat aloft warhorses as their battalion stood at attention at the far edge of camp. The Knight-Commander dismounted and approached the master. Cinath saluted and bowed before the man. 

 

“Lord Seeker Lucias. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

 

Illara noticed the Knight-Commander’s chest plate, and instead of the Templar sword, the unwavering eye of the Seekers gazed out from his chest. 

 

“I’m taking your charge, captain,” his voice authoritative and rough. 

 

Cinath’s head shot up.

 

“But my Lord, she’s not--,” he was cut off before he could finish by a gauntleted hand. 

 

“She has been called upon, captain. Do you question the will of Andraste? She is to come with us to this cursed meeting with the betrayers.”

 

Her master looked shocked at the announcement. She did not understand. What meeting with the mages? Where? When? As the questions rocketed through her mind, the singular answer came with a tug on her collar and the Lord Seeker looking down upon her. 

 

“You. You will be my weapon, you filthy halfling.”

 

Illara felt her body move against her will. Her feet carried her to the group of Templars as the Lord Seeker held her collar in a death grip. As the company moved on from the camp, more Templars joined the ranks. She saw Lysette behind her. The Templar woman tried to give her a look of encouragement, but nothing calmed her nerves. She walked behind the Lord Seeker and his personal guards with chains attached to her collar and her brand visible for all to see.

 

For below her ears, a burning tree scarred her flesh, marking her as a half-breed. Her true mother, an elven maid her father had a brief affair with, had given no features of her race, only the stigma of a bastard child. No pointed ears, no angular features. Only the brand given to her by her father’s wife and brother’s mother. 

 

The Lord Seeker turned to one of the Knights. After a few words exchanged, the Knight turned to the company and yelled, “To the Temple of Sacred Ashes!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope you liked the first installment. This will be slow going, but I hope you all enjoy it while the ride lasts. Let me know what you think, and I hope to see you in future additions! :D
> 
> Also this a remix of DA:I using some Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) references. I've thought more about how the Templars would control powerful yet useful mages. Combining a dwarf's natural resistance to magic along with any possible research they may have done to prevent darkspawn magic from working along with Templar magic dampening, the collar was created.


End file.
